Walking Among Us
by mymonkeycircus
Summary: This is a story of the apocalypse and a young man's will to survive. It's also a story about sexual frustration and an awkward gay love triangle.


**So I'm trying something new out. c: Tell me what you think. :D**

How it began? I guess no one really knows. The dead just sort up and starting eating people. For some, it was a dream come true. But for others, it was a nightmare. Benjamin Morton himself thought he had suddenly become a raging schizophrenic when his own mother came shuffling into his room, her skin rotting and even gone in some places. The smell was absolutely unbearable. His mother never was the most understanding as women went. In fact, her life consisted of sleeping for days on end on the couch with a beer bottle in one hand, the remote control in the other. It wasn't a surprise that she had managed to die. It must have been her hearts revenge for consuming all that unhealthy fast food. It was a surprise, however, when she "woke up" and found her way through the piles of useless trash and into his room.

Ben was actually putting together a model airplane when this happened. The little pieces that lay scattered across his desk, they meant nothing alone. But put together, that's when the magic happened. You could say he was an inventor. Even as a little kid, he ran through the neighbors back yards and stole little things that anyone could easily misplace. A screw here, hammer there, maybe a few pieces of scrap metal if he was lucky. He would sketch together a rough blueprint in the darkest hours of the night, and be awake hours later in the early morning, constructing his new invention and hoping that one-day it would work. Of course, at first his ideas were quite silly. A contraption that completes your homework for you, a little machine that would give you chocolate cake whenever and wherever you asked for it. But when these ideas failed him time after time, he began to put together robots, and was quite delighted every time one would work. His ideas all grow, and over the last decade, he's gotten considerably better with a hammer and a screw. At this very moment, he is attaching the wings to an old German fighter plane, a set that he bought earlier on eBay, when suddenly, there's a loud thump on his door. And a few more thump. Muffled groans come from the other end, and as Ben calls out a "what?" they become increasingly louder, more frantic. "What the fu..." He mutters as he climbs out of the chair and rests his hand on the doorknob. There's a sliver of worry in his mind, but it's mainly curiosity that causes him to turn it, ever so slowly and inch it open.

Of course he wasn't expecting it to fly open. The doorknob manages to hit hard against his hip, which causes him to yell out in sudden pain and fall back, losing his balance and teetering for a brief moment on his heels before toppling backwards and onto his chair. His hand lands on top of the desk, crushing the little model airplane. Ben's eyes widen and in a futile attempt to save his little plane, he scrambles to put it together. He is distracted by the model, when a._thing, _a monster comes into his room. Like the monsters from his dreams, except when he slept, they spoke to him. This was real life, and this monster was advancing toward him, quickly picking up speed as it locks its dead, glazed over and foggy eyes on the young man who has fallen onto his chair. Ben couldn't even call this thing his mother. The skin was falling off, as is the hair. The corpse looked relatively new, but there are already signs of decay. The thing is drooling, long strands of saliva dripping from its mouth and falling onto the floor. It's arms extended and long, cracked fingernails reached toward him. Ben screams, he really does. But no one hears him since the neighbors that are still alive are boarding up their homes, or fleeing in terror. The thing falls on top of him and claws savagely at his body, tearing his clothes, the yellow, crooked teeth snapping just inches from his face. Ben's hand slides across the desk, looking for something to save himself with. Finally, his hands wrap around a familiar object; the screwdriver he was using to construct his plane with. With no hesitation at all, Ben forces the end of the screwdriver through the 'woman's' head and through her brain. It seems to take a moment for even the brain to register what just happened before she falls limp, now a dead weight that kept him pinned to the ground.

Ben was never the strongest of boys growing up, and even now at 17 this was no exception. It took a great amount of strength to push the creature off of his body, and when he did, he scrambled back against the hard wood floor and sat shaking with his back against the mattress. It seemed like forever before his brain come to the conclusion that this was the end; the apocalypse. The Hollywood ending, with people coming back to life as cannibals and infecting the human race. Of course the only way to kill these creatures is a head wound. The brain must be destroyed in order to stop these abominations from walking the earth. And as far as Ben could see, it helped. The young man scrambled to his feet and stood staring at the body on the floor. The smell was horrible, but he'd get over it, just like everyone else left in the world would. Currently, Ben's anxiety was running high and it almost felt like this was a fragment of his imagination, all he would have to do is take a handful of his prescribed pills and fall asleep. In the morning, everything would go away and he could yet again attend school.

But this doesn't feel like something his brain would conjure up, it's too extravagant even for him. It's the sole reason why he doesn't do what he so badly wants too. So instead of going to the bathroom, he stumbles around the corpse laying in the middle of his bedroom and he finds his way to the telephone hanging on the kitchen wall. The first thought that comes into his mind would be to dial his friend's numbers, but then he comes to the realization that he, in fact, has no friends. And so he dials the next best thing, the police. With shaking fingers, he quickly presses the buttons 9-1-1 and holds the phone up to his ear. But there is no sound, not even the dial tone. There's another moment of terrified silence before the lights flicker and everything goes black. As Ben turns his head to look out of the window and into the neighborhood, the lights in the streetlamps and the houses flicker off one by one like a row of dominos until the whole street; the whole town is encased in a thick black nightmare.

Benjamin Morton has seen his fair share of zombie movies, and huddling in the corner high off of Xanax isn't the proper way to survive. A dark, tortured laugh escapes the young mans lips as he blindly feels his way around his house. Yes he has a flashlight, multiple flashlights actually. But the one he uses most is in a drawer underneath his desk, along with a half empty pack of batteries. If he can reach that drawer without incident, he should be able to find his way around to collect what he can. An overwhelming sense of fear suddenly washes over him, and his hands begin to shake as they feel their way along the wall. He can feel his heart beating, but he has to keep moving. It's actually amusing, not even a few hours ago, he was plotting ways to kill himself, but now he's actually trying to live. What is there to live for? If he were smart, he would just let a group of the zombies take him. That way, he would no longer have to deal with his mental anguish. But becoming one of them? It just wasn't worth it. Death would welcome him with open arms, but he'd be back, living off of the corpses of his neighbors.

With success, Ben manages to find his way into his room and to his desk. His hands run over the familiar wood before he falls to his knees and pulls the drawer out, sticking his hand in and retrieving the desired object. He flicks it on graciously and scans the room. He'd have to gather as much as he can then run. By the time the sun rose in the sky, it was likely a group of people would stop by to raid his home and take what they can. Ben exhales slowly, cautiously stepping toward his closet and pushing it open. The black duffel bag from his last overnight school trip lay in a wrinkled heap in the corner, with his plain school backpack sitting on top of it. He grabs these two objects, than frantically begins shoving his belongings in them. He'd have to leave a lot of stuff behind, not that he owned that much himself, but he had limited storage space. He puts a good lot of clothing in the duffel bag, fitting nearly four pairs of pants and a stack of shirts before forcing a jacket in. What else would he need? Definitely his tools, batteries, and medication. He'd bring a book along, and of course the baseball bat he bought a few years back. Ben gathers these things without ease, as it's hard to shine a flashlight and carry all of your belongings in the dark all while trying to stay quiet.

It's a good few hours before Ben has finally gathered everything that he needs. His backpack holds the necessities, things he can reach easily if something were to happen. His duffel bag is mainly clothing and his tools. He stands in the living room, looking around at the place he called home. A faded, sunk in couch against the back wall and an old TV from seven years ago placed parallel to it. The kitchen was a complete mess, the phone actually hung close to the ground, suspended by a single curvy chord. There was hardly anything edible in the kitchen; most of it was expired and old. Then down the hallway on the right was the single bathroom. Like everything else in the house, it was a complete mess. The tiles on the wall cracked and broken, bacteria clumping together and forming in places like the bottom of the bathtub, around the sink, and of course the cracks in the wall. His mothers bedroom was right next to the bathroom. He never went in there, normally because she kept every possession except a mattress outside of her room, so there was nothing of use. Then Ben's own room on the left, opposite the bathroom. The baby blue walls were never painted a different color. His desk sat in the corner and his old bed was pushed against the wall. Everywhere on the ground there were little objects of use; whenever he wanted to build something, all he'd have to do is look down and choose whatever he needed. Lined up against the wall were his inventions and the objects he made, ever since he was a young boy. At the thought of this memory, Ben offers the world a little smile before picking up his duffel and turning on his heel to exit the house, looking back with a sliver of doubt before continuing on his own way.


End file.
